Normally we would be walking up the road to the school by about 8:15 a.m., but this wasn't going to be a normal day. About 7:30 a.m., when we were about half-way between Parramos and Chimaltenango and going up a steep mountain road, the transmission on our bus decided to take a vacation.
This is the same transmission that was being repaired that day when we road a chicken bus instead. Evidently they didn't find the problem.
After trying to get the bus going for a while, they decided that it would be safer if all the passengers exited the bus.
While standing by the side of the road, not far from a blind curve, we waited.
Eventually they decided that the bus wasn't going anywhere and called for a replacement bus. The story we were told was that the replacement bus was about 20 minutes away. One of the Guatemalan passengers, a woman in ropa tipica (traditional Mayan dress), who spoke English like someone from the northeast U.S., told us that, in that case, we could expect the replacement bus within an hour to an hour and a half. While waiting, I walked a short distance up the highway and took a photo of the terrain.
Around 8:30 a.m. a car pulled off the road and Kristen's head appeared asking us if we needed a ride. She and Norma, from San Miguel Dueñas (not far from our apartment), were riding with John, the In-Country Director of Child Aid, to their weekly staff meeting at the Mollina School, where their warehouse is located. They took us to the Central American highway (Pan American highway), in Chimaltenango, where we could find transportation to the Melotto School, where we would be working that day.
On the way to our drop-off point, John asked if we were interested in joining him for a day trip to La Canoas, near Lake Atitlan, on Thursday. This is the school that has the sixteen computer lab that "no functiona" (doesn't work). Our objective for this first trip will be to do an assessment of the equipment, see if it runs and determine if it is worth trying to get working.
Before coming to Guatemala, I was impressed with the work being done by a number of non-profits that took computer systems surplused by businesses and corporations, renovated them and loaded an operating system and standard programs. Since beginning to work with Child Aid and, on the basis of my experience with two schools, I'm growing concerned that much of what is being shipped to Guatemala is just junk. Furthermore, the software that is preloaded on these computers, which seem to have very small hard drives and minimal memory, is more suited to individual or business computing than educational programming.
Education in Guatemala is problematic at best. There are two separate systems: a public school system and a private school system consisting of individual schools operated primarily, but not exclusively, by churches. These church operated schools are either Catholic or Evangelical, which is the Guatemalan term for protestant, since the label protestant connotes revolutionary.
The Melotto School in Chimaltenango is operate by the Diocese of Sololá-Chimaltenango, while the Socorro de Belen School in La Antigua is operated by nuns belonging to the Bethlehemite Order, originally founded by St. Hermano Pedro. While the Melotto School has both a primary and secondary division, the Socorro school seems to be primarily a primary school with a special high school program for Mayan girls in which they are trained to return to their villages as teachers.
Child Aid is not religiously affiliated, but works with any interested school. It's probably just a coincidence that both schools we've worked with thus far have been Catholic. I have no idea what affiliation the La Canoas is, not that it matters. They have computers that need assistance and the "B Team" is on the way.
Enough for the digression. After being let out in Chimaltenango, we began looking for a way to get to Melotto. Traffic on the Central American Highway is a nightmare at the best of times, but lately they've been doing some major road work and it's really made things difficult. The last time we had changed buses here, Kristen had to try several buses before one would take us the short distance to the school. Thus, not in the mood for dealing with reluctant chicken bus drivers and their ayudantes, I uttered my "magic" phrase: "A tuk, a tuk, my kingdom for a tuk-tuk" and almost immediately one appeared. (More research is needed to determine if this is just a coincidence.) We were quickly delivered at the gate of the Melotto School and, after announcing our presence, got to work.
At our last visit, there had been no electricity, so nothing had been accomplished. Previous to that visit, we had managed to get three of the computers (two with Windows 98 and one with XP) operating. We also had a fourth (running XP) that did run, but had issues. Today I managed to tame the fourth computer, optimize both it and the other XP computer and install a Spanish language typing tutor program I had discovered on-line on all four of them. You might not realize it, but the Spanish language has a different alphabet than English and thus a different type of keyboard. For someone trained on an English QWERTY keyboard, it's fairly close, but a number of key characters are in different locations.
On our last visit, John and Kristen had brought another computer donation, but we had not had time to check it out. Today, we managed to get it working, although it seems to have issues yet to be dealt with.
Around noon, two Spanish-speaking men arrived in the computer room and from what we could understand, were there to repair one of the computers. Strangly enough, they took an empty case and filled it with a motherboard, power supply and other components that they brough with them. Surprisingly, they managed to make it work, but both Linda and I had to be vigilent to keep them from helping themselves to parts from the computers we had managed to get running. I'll need to check this sixth computer out in more detail when we next return to Melotto.
While the two Spanish-speaking computer assemblers were still at work, John and Kristen appeared with another donated monitor for our fifth computer and announced that if we wanted a ride back, we needed to be able to depart within the next three minutes. We did and we did.
Once underway, we learned that we were only going as far as the crossroad in Chimaltenago, where we would return to La Antigua by chicken bus. John, meanwhile, would continue on to Guatemala City for a dental appointment.
We got out in "downtown" Chimaltenango and quickly located a La Antigua-bound chicken bus. On the trip back, we passed the site of our Pullman breakdown that morning and found that bus down the hill and on the side of the road still awaiting a tow truck. I assume that the replacement bus had taken the remaining passengers on to their destinations.
We soon arrived back at La Antigua, exited at the chicken bus terminal and went to Kristen's apartment where we started downloading a piece of software (3+ gigabytes) that I needed on Wednesday at Socorro School. That done, Linda and I headed over to Pollo Campero for, you guessed it, another cono helado suave and a restroom break. We then decided that lunch had been early, so we headed over to McDonalds for a Mediterráneo combo. Following a quick trip to Dispensa Familar for some beef for the soup we were going to make, we headed over to the street where we boarded our homeward bound buses.
Seeing a bus loading, I asked one of the ayudantes if that were the Alo bus. He held his and up to his hear, as if holding a cell phone, and said Alo (hello). We laughed and boarded the bus, which was headed to Alotenango.
When I paid the ayudante, I started to tell him where we wanted to get off, but he indicated that he already knew. So, about 15 minutes later, we were dropped off at the front of the cemetery, not the back, which is where the road to our apartment is located. Waving to the policemen on duty at the intersection, we walked the short distance to our apartment.
This evening we blogged, did on-line research, watched a movie, video conferenced with Susan and Erik in Texas and Donna, Nic, Cos and Gia in California. Linda made our evening soup and, as good as it was, it will be great after it ages properly.
Tomorrow, we head back to Socorro School to see if I can turn their computers into usable student instructional tools. We also hope to visit with the new director to determine what objectives, if any, she has for her school's computer lab.
